Bear Meinhardt in Barovia The Church
I was moving gingerly in the morning when we finally left the house. Aerick and Hayden had bonded over and inside me during the night. We had formed an adventuring party of sorts based on the fact they liked using my ass. As long as they didn't get possessive, I was okay with having these two handsome, and well hung men in my life. We laughed and cut up, an occasional hand slapping my ass while we walked to the church.
Atop a slight rise, against the roots of the pillar stone that supports Castle Raven loft, stood a gray, sagging edifice of stone and wood. The church had obviously weathered the assaults of evil for centuries on end and is worn and weary. A bell tower rises toward the back, and flickering light shines through holes in the shingled roof. The rafters strained feebly against their load.
"I got a bad feeling," Aerick said. He shifted his double headed great axe in his hands. He looked at Hayden and grinned, "These feelings have kept me alive."
Hayden nodded and took his bow from his back and strung it. I followed example and reached for my whip. Hayden grinned and whispered, "I can't wait to see you dance at the end of that whip. I bet you look good all tied up."
"We are going to a church!" I hissed at him and he laughed loud and clear. It was the only sound as we approached the doors. The heavy wooden doors of the church were covered with claw marks and scarred by fire.
Since the church was a public building, we didn't bother knocking but tried to open the doors. They were locked. I was not really surprised the doors were locked. Everything in the town was locked, why should the church be any different. We knocked on the door. We were met with silence. We knocked again. Still silence.
"You trying to get inside?"
A hushed voice somewhere between a whisper and a raspy voice spoke from a shadow near the church. A human moved out of the shadow. He was lean, muscular and wearing a form-fitting leather armour dyed black or maybe made out of black leathers. He had a triangular face with a devil's goatee and brooding eyebrows. His black hair was pulled back sharply in a pony tail causing a widow's peak in his forehead. The only colour to catch the eye were a pair of silver sais at his hip and his intense blue eyes.
I stepped slightly forward, "Yes. Two members of party of adventurers came to investigate the church the other day and haven't returned. I was asked to check on them and see what could be found. We do not even know if they made it to the church successfully."
He nodded and slinked to the door the church. He produced a small tool from somewhere on his body, but I wasn't able to see where he pulled it. He put it into the lock on the church and carefully twisted while applying a bit of strength and the door popped open. "Easy enough," he said. "The church wasn't really designed to keep anyone out and the locks are easy to pop."
"Perhaps, I could accompany you on your journey for a bit. I need to keep a low profile for a couple of weeks." He grinned again and showed his pearly white teeth in a charming manner.
I saw Aerick and Haydentaul look at each other. "We aren't sure you'd like to or want to join us." Aerick said.
"Why's that?" He raised his eyebrows at Aerick.
"We are a rather... intimate party." Haydentaul replied and Aerick cupped his crotch and adjusted himself.
"Oh," he said. "OH!" his eyes widened as he began to comprehend what the two muscular men behind me were saying. He began to chuckle, "Well, that doesn't bother me in the least."
"It doesn't?" I looked at him.
"No. Why should it?" he said.
"As long as you are aware and it doesn't bother you, you're welcome to come along." Aerick offered extending his hand.
He shook Aerick's hand and opened the door to the church revealing a ten-foot wide, twenty-foot long hall leading to a brightly lit chapel. The hall was unlit and reeked of mildew. Four doors, two on each side of the hall, lead to adjacent chambers.
As we moved down the hallway, we could see the chapel was strewn with debris. A small soft, voice from within was reciting a prayer. Suddenly, the prayer was blotted out by an inhuman scream that rose up from beneath the wooden floor.
The scream startled me and I paused taking in the chapel and trying to determine where the sound originated. The chapel was in shambles, with overturned and broken pews littering the dusty floor. Dozens of candles mounted in candlesticks and candelabras lit every dusty corner in a fervent attempt to rid the chapel of shadows.
At the far end of the church sat a claw-scarred altar, behind which knelt a priest in soiled vestments. Next to him hung a long, thick rope that stretched up into the bell tower. The priest seeing us, jumped up, his wild hair sticking out in all directions and screamed, "No one takes my son from me." With that, he cast a spell from a scroll he was holding.
I felt myself snared in a circle of necromantic energy. It burst in the middle of us, and the necromantic energy devoured the life force of both our lock-picker and Haydentaul. They dropped dead at my feet. I could feel the necromantic energy trying to snuff out my own life force and could only imagine that Aerick felt the same.
Aerick didn't like magic being used on him and he fell into a berserk rage charging the priest with his great axe swinging. I had my whip but a whip isn't a weapon that you charge an enemy with, it's more graceful and subtle. I opened myself up to my magic and let it spill out from in the direction of the priest. I didn't have any flashy magic, but I was very good with compulsions and enchantments. I shaped my magic into a "hideous laughter" compulsion and pushed it onto the priest.
I could feel the priest's will trying to resist my magic, but this was my speciality. I felt his will crumble under my magic and I heard him laugh maniacally and fall to the ground laughing. The priest's will was strong though and I didn't know how long it would hold him, so I moved forward and around the alter to where he was within the reach of my whip.
He was subject to the compulsion of my laughter allowing Aerick to get another slash with his great axe. Blood sprayed across the altar and over Aerick's face. The priest laughed while rolling from to side in agony from his wound. My whip lashed out at the fallen priest and it sizzled with holy energy upon contact. The priest fell unconscious, his blood bleeding out over the chapel floor.
I moved forward to bind his wounds and to keep him from dying. "We can question him later, if he doesn't die." I told Aerick. I then went back to our fallen comrades. There was no pulse and no way of bringing them back from the dead. "We should bury them."
I let my magic touch my eyes and identified the armours they both wore as magical and removed them from the bodies. Our burglar was a shower and his cock was thick and long and would have felt marvellous if he'd survived long enough to be my lover. It was a bit more sad looting Hayden's body. I could feel him still inside me and remembered how he had teased me going up to the church wanting me tied up and using my whip on me.
I gave the gambler's armour to Aerick. He said it was too small, but was pleasantly surprised when it fit him. I didn't tell him that magical items would sometimes alter to fit their wearer. He didn't really like magic at all, but he did understand armour and the black leather armour was masterfully made. He made some adjustments with his own hides and draped his furs artfully, decoratively about his shoulders making a fur cape to fall down his back.
"It doesn't give you very easy access to your cock. It'll be a bitch to have to adjust every time you need to piss." I walked over and showed him where the leather buckles were located to open the armour to let you take care of the necessities. It satisfied him enough to keep it on.
I next let the magic in my eyes roam over the priest. The priests full plate and steel shield glowed magical. A morning star lay near wear he fell and I kicked it further away from him. The altar itself glowed and I approached it slowly. A large, black leather tome sat in the middle of the altar. I closed it and looked at the book, "Liber Blaspheme" the book read. I scanned the pages while my magic filled my eyes.
It was a terrible manuscript that describe in detail vile techniques used to bring back the dead. It didn't bring the dead back though as living beings but as a creature called a "blaspheme". An undead creature whose very existence would propagate undead. It was a book describing how to bring about a zombie apocalypse. It also explained the undead invasion. Somewhere hidden in the church was a blaspheme and from the sounds of the screams heard when we entered it was hidden somewhere below us.
I told Aerick what I had found and that I thought we should search the church from top to bottom. He agreed with me, "Such evil magic should be destroyed." But he also didn't want the priest waking up and coming after us while we searched.
We chose one of the alcoves off the church at random and opened the door. The room was dirty, but it contained a wooden bed with a straw filled mattress. Next to the bed was a small table with an oil lamp burning softly on it. Mounted above the bed's headboard was a wooden sun-shaped holy symbol.
I moved to check the bed and table making sure there was nothing that the priest could use to free himself or hurt himself upon. Aerick moved behind me and when I attempted to move away felt him pressing against my backside and his hands came around to grab me as he playfully ground against me. "Not now, Aerick. It's not safe and we have work to do."
"I was just playing." The tone of his voice sounded like he his feelings were hurt that I turned him down, so I turned to look at him. He was sulking. It dawned on me, that his playing was also his way of getting rid of his unease at Hayden falling dead at his feet.
"I'm sorry but I didn't realise it was meant in a playful gesture." I smiled at him. He smiled back but it didn't reach his eyes. "I promise when we get everything done here, and we are back in the inn or a safer place.... I'll do more than be playful with you." I stepped up and kissed his lips.
This time his smile did reach his eyes. He nodded and went to get the unconscious priest. He tossed the priest on the bed without any care or gentleness at all. I had to take a moment to make sure he hadn't burst any of his bandages and then had Aerick help me tie him up so that he wasn't a danger to us or to himself if he regained consciousness.
We decided the best course of search was from the entrance forward. We found another bedroom and a small office. The bedroom was exactly like the first one we found, but the office held an old desk and chair. Another wooden holy symbol was mounted above them in a sunburst.
A ten-foot-long iron rod was attached to the north wall suggesting a tapestry once hung there. Against the far wall stood a wooden cabinet with four tall doors. An empty wooden poor box rested on the seat of the chair. The desk drawers held a few sheets of blank parchment, along with a couple of quill pens and dried up jars of ink. The cabinet contained very little, a tinderbox, a few wooden boxes full of candles, and two well used books: "Hymns to the Dawn", a volume of chants to the Morninglord, and "The Blade of Truth: The Uses of Logic in the War Against Diabolist Heresies, as Fought by the Ulmist Inquisition", a strange book that mixed logic exercises with lurid descriptions of fiend-worshipping cults.
"This could be some interesting night reading." I grinned at Aerick and pointed at the Blade of Truth.
He picked it up and thumbed through it quickly. "No pictures." He gave it back to me.
There was only one other door to explore, and we opened the room ready for whatever lay behind door number four. Zombies. We waded into the zombies, Aerick's great axe leaving great openings as he cleaved into them. My whip sizzling with holy energy as we made short work of the undead.
After the zombies stopped moving, we took in our surroundings. Time and neglect had punched holes in the ceiling of this mouldy room, which contained a few broken roof shingles amid puddles of water. In one corner, set into the floor, was a heavy wooden trapdoor held shut with a chain and a padlock. A young man's screams of anguish could be heard through the door.
"It's a shame we lost our friend that was so good with locks." I looked at Aerick.
"It's okay." Aerick grinned at me. "It's wooden and I happen to have a great big axe." He laughed and begin chopping into the waterlogged trapdoor. His muscles heaved and he soon had made gaping holes in the trapdoor. It only took a short amount of time and he had busted the door in half and removed it from it's frame. "There, it's not the same as picking the lock, but the trapdoor is open."
He swung the head of his large double-sided axe to the ground and leaned against the handle. He had worked up a bit of a sweat cutting through the trapdoor. I thought he was handsome as hell standing there in his fitting leathers, hide cloak, leaning on his giant axe. I'd have climbed him like a totem pole and rode him like I was breaking a horse, but duty called and we still had a blaspheme to destroy.
While Aerick rested and caught his breath, I told him of my encounter with the Burgomeister's son. "I joined him in a drink at the inn. He told me that Donovich was the priest here and that his son Doru was killed by bandits while he was trying to protect the village. Since we found the book, "Libre Blaspheme", I'm guessing Donovich was trying to find a way to bring his son back to life. Of course, when he attacked us, he screamed "You will not kill my son" or something of the like, which leads me to believe that Doru is the blaspheme."
Aerick listened and then grinned at me. "Does it really matter who the blaspheme is? There is only one outcome, it needs to be destroyed."
I agreed that it needed to be destroyed, but the pieces of the zombie invasion were beginning to fall into place. Doru had gone to try to rescue the village and was killed. Donovich raised him from the dead, not understanding what would happen. Doru became the blaspheme and the undead rose from his vile necromantic existence and since they were close to both the cemetery and the village, the cemetery corpses rose as zombies and marched to the village to feed. I felt pleased with myself for solving at least part of the mystery.
"Do you want to go first, or do you want me to?" Aerick asked.
"Well last night, I learned that you go first, second, fourth, sixth..." I grinned at him as I stepped over the broken wooden trapdoor and slowly made my way down the slippery steps to the church's undercroft. Halfway down the steps, I met the remains of Ashlyn's adventuring companions. They were zombies and I used my whip to destroy them while trying to dodge their attacks on the narrow, slippery stairs. Once I fell back towards Aerick and he helped steady me, but I blocked him from being able to help with the zombies. The stairs wouldn't let him swing his axe with any accuracy with me in the way. We hurried down the last of the steps.
Rough-hewn walls and a floor made of damp clay and earth glistened with moisture and mildew. A litter of collapsed floorboards and a partially smashed laboratory work bench was in the northwest portion of the cellar, including an iron slab surrounded by a clutter of broken equipment of incomprehensible complexity. Rotting wooden pillars strained under the weight of the wooden ceiling above. Candlelight from the chapel above slipped through the cracks allowing us to see an awful shape in the south corner groan and shamble forward.
The creature appeared like a corpse surgically modified by a lunatic. Skeletally thin, its arms were too long while its head was wide and wedge-shaped, with a mouth split so that it was able to open wider than a normal humans. Its teeth glittered like shards of black, steaming ice. It looked at us. "I can smell your blood." It was upon us.
It moved faster than I thought possible for any undead creature. Aerick was nearly as fast. He raged at the loss of our newly found friend. He raged at the use of magic being cast upon him. His axe blurred as he swung with a ferocity only the wild barbarians of the north could match. His axe cut deep into the creature. The creature in its hunger ignored the giant axe biting deep into its skin and sunk it's teeth into Aerick's chest. I could see Aerick's eyes glaze over in pain as the creature bite into him pulling out a chunk of his breast before chewing on it and gulping it down.
I was afraid of losing Aerick since I'd already lost Haydentaul. I channelled holy energy into my whip and struck letting the wrath of my goddess strike the creature. It howled as the whip flashed with holy energy, and turned it's eyes on me. I flicked my wrist and struck the creature again before pulling the whip back towards me. The creature spat the lump of flesh out of its mouth, grinned at me and charged. Aerick remained dazed by his chest wound as it charged me. I dodged the creature and ducked away moving toward the destroyed alchemist's lab. The creature followed. It was too close for my whip and I wasn't fast enough to get enough distance between myself and the creature.
Neither of us noticed when Aerick began to move again, but the blade of his axe suddenly swung with a viscous stroke cutting through the creature neck. The creature stood there grinning at me for a moment before toppling forward, its head severed from it's body rolling across the damped, earth floor. I don't know which of us more stunned at the moment, the creature or myself. I stared at Aerick a moment, not comprehending what had just happened, but then whooped for joy. I flung myself into the barbarian's arms and hugged him, glad that we had survived.
"We shouldn't have survived that you, know?" I looked at him.
"We almost didn't...and I'm still bleeding," Aerick responded. He had moved over to the alchemical lab and was sitting on the slab. I looked around the destroyed lab to see if I could find anything to help us. I found some clean linens and wrapped his wound, then helped him up the stairs. We went to see the old priest, Donovan.
Donovan was still tied up but he was awake on the bed. I helped him sit up, and the priest looked at us a moment before saying in a sad, forlorn voice. "He's dead. My son is dead for good isn't he." He didn't wait for us to confirm it, he could tell by looking at us and the fact the screams from the under the church had stopped that his son was dead. "I've lived a long time, and a father should never live outlive his children. It's not fair. It's too cruel." Tears began to fall from his eyes. "I'm sorry for the hurt that I have caused you." He motioned Aerick close and closed his eyes. A white light glowed behind his eyelids and he reached forward touching Aerick's wound and it closed, the flesh knitting and healing. "It's the least I could do to start making amends."
Aerick thanked him and I asked if he could at least help bury the Burgomeister for his son and daughter Irena. Donovan laughed at the question.
"Irena Kolyana isn't the natural daughter of Kolyan Indirovich. Although Ireena never knew, Kolyan found her at the edge of the Svalich Woods near the Pillarstone of Ravenloft. She was but a girl then and seemed to have no memory of her past. Kolyan adopted her and loved her dearly, but she is not his daughter like my son was my son. Still she will bury her father, and I will bury my son."
"There are others that should be buried as well. Perhaps, we could have a large ceremony and bury most of them at the same time." I suggested to the priest.
"Fine, Fine," the priest nodded. "Bring them here and we will bury everyone at once."
I nodded and Aerick went to untie the priest but hesitated.
"I promise, I have nothing left to defend or to live for. My son was the only thing left to me."
Aerick untied him and we went to town to gather Ashlyn so that she could see her friends in the undercroft put to rest. We had Haydentaul to bury. The cleric's son Doru. The lock-picking gambler. Anyone else that we found that would need a burial.
Ashlyn was in the town square. She had rallied the villagers. When the blaspheme was destroyed, all the undead dropped where they were. Ashlyn had encouraged the villagers to round up the bodies and the were being burnt in the town square. Ashlyn was saddened at the news of her lost comrades, but agreed to meet us in the church later. Some of the villagers agreed to go back to the church with us to help dig graves.
When we got back to the church, we went to gather Haydentaul's body. Father Donovan had hung himself from the tower belfry by the rope. We added another grave to the list. It was approaching midnight when we finally finished burying everyone that needed to be buried. We were about to leave when an eerie green light suffused the graveyard. From this light emerged a ghostly procession. Wavering images of doughty women toting greatswords, woodwise men with slender bows, dwarves with glittering axes, and archaically dressed mages with beards and strange, pointed hats—all these and more march forth from the graveyard, their numbers growing by the second.
"Do you see that, Aerick" I pointed at the ghostly procession making it's way towards the Castle Ravenloft high above us.
Aerick gripped his axe tightly in his hand and nodded.
"I think we might need more help than just the two of us." I said.
Aerick watched the procession in silence and again just nodded.